Detecting Protein Tyrosine Kinase-7 Using Nanowire Biosensor

Qualitative and quantitative detection of biological species are central to many areas ofhealthcare and life sciences. Recently, 1-D nanostructured semiconductors have becomea class of popular building block for transducer elements with promising properties forbiosensing applications. Despite the fact that real-time, label-free, and highly sensitivedetection of proteins, nucleic acids, and virus have been demonstrated by single-nanowirefield-effect transistor based biosensors, clinical applications of thesebiosensors are rare. The device-to-device performance variation among the single-nanowiredbiosensors is the principal obstacle to their utilization and mass production.One possible strategy to minimize such variation is to construct multi-nanowire field-effecttransistor biosensors. In this project, we will concentrate on the development ofpractical multi-nanowire field-effect transistor biosensors for the detection of proteintyrosine kinase-7 (PTK7). PTK7 is an important biomarker for various leukemias andsolid tumors, including T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia, B-cellacute lymphoblastic leukemia, lung cancer, gastric cancer, and colon cancer, and sofar no nanowire-based PTK7 biosensors have been developed. We plan to (1) establish acost-effective technique to prepare multi-nanowire field-effect transistors with goodtransconductances from non-cytotoxic semiconductor nanowires, (2) develop surfacemodification technique to conjugate PTK7-selective recognition units on nanowires, and(3) build and optimize multi-nanowire biosensors which allow real-time PTK7 sensing.It is anticipated that these PTK7 biosensors not only would allow early detection ofvarious cancers, but they would also provide a platform to study the relationship betweenthe dynamics of PTK7 and the formation of different diseases.?